Featured Listings — Sponsored listings with guaranteed placement on the first or second search results pages for broader exposure in a specific geography or category

Enhanced Listings — Sponsored listings that offer the ability to add a detailed business description, photos, tagline and coupons to create greater online visibility for businesses and enhance their appearance within organic results

Yahoo! Maps Business Listings — Sponsored listings within the context of a map-based view"

Smart for Yahoo and Donnelley, bad for the individual who is looking to get a Yahoo! Featured Listing with little competition as Yahoo! is working hard to fill every vacant sponsored spot.

When Bob the carpet store owner goes to place a featured listing on Yahoo! Local he will be jousting for one of the top three spots with big ticket advertising clients from Donnelley and SuperPages .

If you are a small business and you found your way this far you know you must expand your Internet footprint to stay with or rise above your competition. It's confusing as no blueprint for doing it right exists.

Your options are as follows:

You can place your money with an IYP rep from R.H. Donnelley or SuperPages or your local print directory sales rep and let them guide you. (the same guys who have been roping you onto their print books since the beginning of time).

You can learn the search marketing angles yourself. Cut out the agents and reps and have some fun learning this fascinating end of the market. (do you have the time?)

Option #2 is the best if a person has the time. Option #3 is the best if you want your business represented across the board, with a full presence on all the local directories, search engines and review sites. Option #3 also brings you a full time one on one Pay Per Click practitioner dedicated to making your business grow.

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About This Blog

These pages serve in support of Sierra Web Marketing, a one-stop search marketing shop for local business.New tools and tactics for marketing small business come available almost daily. For the benefit of our clients we follow and study trends in social media marketing, search engine marketing, site optimization and hyper-local user generated content sites.